Leeds city centre’s residential property market is set for a period of “significant activity” in 2018, according to a property expert.

Morgans, the Leeds city living specialist, manages the city centre’s largest apartment portfolio and the company’s managing director, Jonathan Morgan, says that work will start on more new apartment schemes in the next 12 months than we have seen for years.

Jonathan explained: “The supply of new apartments in the city centre market has been decimated over the last ten years - demand has never faltered and occupation levels have been almost full throughout - our significant rentals portfolio is currently over 99.5% occupied.

“With supply running at around 10% of what it was in the previous decade, it doesn’t take much analysis to work out that we are in dramatic under-supply and over-demand.

“Whilst this has not been a strong enough dynamic in its own right to trigger an upturn, we are on the verge of a period of significant activity, fuelled partly by the notion that Leeds is currently under-valued and is therefore well set for investment growth, the advent of fund backed PRS schemes and, perhaps most significantly, a growing sense that Manchester is may be close to done in this cycle, and that Leeds is the place for investors and funds to be.

He added: “With willing renters and buyers and an economy which, according to Cambridge Economics, is showing all the signs of a strong future, the only element missing is fresh supply.

“We firmly believe, through the activity we are picking up, that 2018 will see more residential starts in the city centre than we have seen for a decade, and we anticipate several fund-backed PRS schemes to fire up, along with a number of high quality prime schemes and a handful of slightly marginal schemes in the fringes.

“With fresh residential supply in the city centre, plenty of quality jobs available and a booming leisure, retail and cultural scene, Leeds is well placed to move further towards it’s ambition of becoming one of the UK’s great cities.”